MALDOROR

Opera in seven scenes, based on Les Chants de Maldoror

Music: Philipp Maintz (*1977)
Libretto: Thomas Fiedler; based on themes from Les Chants de Maldoror by Lautréamont

Musical director: Marcus R. Bosch
Director: Georges Delnon and Joachim Rathke
Set designer: Roland Aeschlimann
Costume designer: Marie-Thérèse Jossen
Video: Tabea Rothfuchs
Light: Georges Delnon, Dirk Sarach-Craig
Dramatic advisors: Ute Vollmar, Kai Weßler

Performers: Marisol Montalvo (La voix de soprano), Martin Berner (Maldoror),
Otto Katzameier (Lautréamont), Leila Pfister (La mère), Lasse Penttinen (Le père)

Sinfonieorchester Aachen

Composition and libretto commissioned by the City of Munich, Theater Aachen, and Theater Basel

Co-production: Munich Biennale with Theater Aachen and Theater Basel

Funded by

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Tickets: € 25,– 20,– 15,– 10,–
Reduced rate: € 10,–

Online ticket sales: www.muenchenticket.de

World premiere:

Tuesday, April 27, 8:00 p.m.

Additional performances:

Thursday, April 29, and Friday, April 30, 8:00 p.m.

Prinzregententheater

Composer forum: Philipp Maintz
Moderation: Peter Ruzicka,
Tuesday, April 27, 6:30 p.m.,
Gartensaal im Prinzregententheater

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After Isidore Ducasse, alias Comte de Lautréamont, had his Songs of Maldoror printed in 1869, the publisher refused to distribute it. The state censorship authorities would never allow such a blunt discussion of power and evil doings. Philipp Maintz and Thomas Fiedler have crystallized this 23-year-old author’s ingenious book into a libretto with seven scenes, which concentrates on three persons: Lautréamont, Maldoror (his fantasy and alter ego), and a “voix de soprano.” She is the formal bracket holding the work together, she is the silver lining of hope, beyond beauty and an oracle in a process where Lautréamont creates his alter ego for the first time, then tries to get rid of it, and in the end is killed by it. Philipp Maintz wrote a score that deploys the contrasts of chamber music delicateness as well as powerful explosions and eruptions. Maldoror begins in an oceanic atmosphere and culminates in a struggle for life or death.

Philipp Maintz, born in 1977 in Aachen, received his first lessons in composition with Michael Reudenbach. From 1997 – 2003 he studied with Robert HP Platz in Maastricht (graduation with honors), followed by postgraduate studies in composition and electronic music with Karlheinz Essl in Linz. He has received grants and invitations from, among other institutions, Electronic Studio Liège; the International Summer Course For New Music in Darmstadt; and IRCAM in Paris. In 2005 he was awarded a grant by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation; in 2006 a grant from the Wilfried Steinbrenner Foundation; and in 2007 a grant from the German government to study at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. He is currently studying under a grant at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart. He has an invitation to study at the Villa Massimo in Rome in 2010.